Amalalaq’s Journey
By Lawrence Barker

he fire warmed Amalalaq as she wove seal whiskers into an ornament for her hair. The constant ‘chick-chick’ of Raven Boy’s rock-hard fingers, chipping a whale vertebra into a harpoon, echoed from the caribou hide walls. Amalalaq smiled. Raven Boy might rest the vertebra on his protruding ribs. His long and narrow eyes might seem to study his work. In truth, Raven Boy watched her more closely than he watched the harpoon head.

Kykvat the shaman, in whose whale-rib and caribou hide house Amalalaq and Raven Boy lived, sat beyond the circle of orange firelight. He tapped his open-frame drum and journeyed among the green and red lights that the Dancing Dead splash about the night sky. Without warning, Kykvat shot upright. He so startled Amalalaq that her seal whiskers fell into the fire. “A visitor approaches,” Kykvat barked.

Amalalaq forgot the lost whiskers. Whether seeking Kykvat’s advice on the hunt, or wanting him to carve a tupilaq, a sculpted bone servant, visitors always praised Amalalaq’s beauty. How could they not? Now in her fifteenth year, Amalalaq’s eyes were as wide-set, her nose as flat, and her chin tattoo as elaborate as that of the chief wife of Makyat, the head-man. Amalalaq grabbed a piece of seal skin and chewed, not to soften the skin but to better highlight her tattoo.

Kykvat gestured toward the door. “Go outside,” Kykvat ordered. Raven Boy rose to go. Amalalaq frowned. Did Kykvat hide Raven Boy from visitors because Raven Boy's bulging forehead or small stature, barely half Amalalaq’s, somehow embarrassed Kykvat?
Kykvat blocked Raven Boy’s path. “This time, Amalalaq waits outside," Kykvat snapped. "Raven Boy remains.”

“But the kele roam at night,” Amalalaq protested, thinking of the monstrous spirits that fill their lamps with burning human fat.

Kykvat chuckled. “The kele know better than to challenge one who has met the Spirits of the Walking Ice, as I have many times.” Amalalaq shivered at Kykvat’s mention of the land’s most powerful spirits who know all truth. Kykvat threw her a whalebone talisman, suspended from a sealskin thong. “This will remind the kele of their master.”

Amalalaq caught the talisman. Its touch burned like the bite of the black flies of the snowless season. Kykvat wrinkled his nose. “Do not let it touch you,” he said.

Amalalaq studied the talisman. It bore the image of a bound, lopsided kele. She grimaced, but placed the ugly thing about her neck, outside her fur-lined anorak.

Kykvat motioned Amalalaq onward. Reluctantly, Amalalaq donned her mittens and pulled her hood tight. She exited and hid behind the piled walrus skulls that marked Kykvat as a shaman.

As Kykvat predicted, a hunter's sled soon glided over the snow into view. A scar ran from the hunter’s brow to his empty eye socket. His lip caved inward, as though he lacked front teeth. The half-starved dogs that pulled the visitor’s sled let Amalalaq know that this was the luckless Yamoria. 

Yamoria had once been Makyat the head-man’s chosen successor. But then a bear had blinded one of Yamoria’s eyes. Seals that had once given themselves to Yamoria’s spear remained submerged until he moved on. A kele took Yamoria’s sons and the bloody-belly killed his wives. With Yamoria’s luck gone, Makyat had named another successor.

Yamoria dismounted from his position, seated on the dogsled. As would any wise traveler, he sang a song asking permission to enter. Halfway through, he changed to a song that admits defeat in a tug-of-war.

Amalalaq frowned, confused by mixed songs. The songs did not seem to confuse Kykvat, for the shaman invited Yamoria in. Yamoria vanished through the wind-flap, into the house of whale-rib and caribou hide.

First, Amalalaq listened to the howling wind. When its lonely cries grew tiresome, she studied Yamoria’s hollow-eyed dogs, skin stretched over bone. Soon, Amalalaq grew unable to bear the dogs’ hungry look. From her hiding place, she could almost understand Kykvat and Yamoria's words. A few steps closer, and she could hear clearly.

Amalalaq might have resisted curiosity had Kykvat not begun a high-pitched song, ending with a wolfish howl that lifted the hair on Amalalaq’s neck. “Kykvat did not forbid listening,” she whispered. Amalalaq emerged from behind the walrus skulls. She cautiously approached the skin wall and peered through a tiny hole.

Raven Boy lay, motionless, on a bearskin. Had Raven Boy died? No, Kykvat did not sing Raven Boy’s spirit to the Dancing Dead. Had Kykvat’s shaman song temporarily withdrawn Raven Boy’s life? Amalalaq guessed that this was so.

Yamoria's eyes were cast down. “You have won,” Yamoria muttered. He gestured toward Raven Boy. “I admit that you have imprisoned my luck inside this tupilaq.” Kykvat tapped Raven Boy’s chest. His blow made the dull ‘thud’ of hardened hands striking whalebone.

Amalalaq gasped in horror. Was Raven Boy a bone carving, given life by Kykvat’s songs? The thought left a hollow in her stomach. Still, that would explain Raven Boy’s size and appearance.

Yamoria’s hand vanished into his anorak. He produced a  metal-bladed knife, like the southern tribes trade for skins. “This is my strongest knife.” Yamoria ran the knife above Raven Boy’s sternum, as though splitting a seal. He gave Kykvat the knife. “What more do you demand to return my luck?”

“This is a good knife,” Kykvat said, “but the blade that your father gave you is better.”

Yamoria scowled, as though this price was too high. For a moment, Amalalaq thought that Yamoria might rise and stalk out. Then Yamoria slumped. “My father’s knife is yours,” he muttered, surrender in his voice.

Kykvat nodded. “You must yield your kayak, and half of next season’s catch.” Yamoria’s hands became fists. This time, he did rise. Kykvat did not flinch. “I will,” he told Yamoria, “name the rest of my price when you are headman.”

Yamoria stopped. “I can be headman?”

“If your luck returned, you would be successor again.” Kykvat shrugged. “Makyat is old. Accidents happen. The great bears...” His voice trailed off.  

“Headman,” Yamoria muttered, eyes unfocused. His face turned ice-hard. “But you would be the real ruler.”  

Kykvat picked up a whale vertebra and struck a few chips from it. “Makyat has advisors. Why not you?”

Yamoria grunted. He rubbed his eye socket. “Why should I listen to the one who caused my woes?”

Kykvat tossed aside the vertebra. “Because only I can reverse them.”

Yamoria spat on the ground. He walked toward the door. “After the pale sun rises, I shall return with my father’s knife and my kayak.” He gestured at Raven Boy. “You will release my luck.”

Kykvat nodded. He made a pass with the knife, just missing Raven Boy’s chest. “I will split this tupilaq. The luck imprisoned inside will fly free.”

The words pierced Amalalaq with harpoon force. Kykvat would kill Raven Boy? Amalalaq swallowed hard. 

Kykvat passed his hand over Raven Boy’s face. Raven Boy blinked and sat up. “What has happened?” Raven Boy asked.

Kykvat smiled the smile of a many-toothed whale. “I sang you to sleep. Now I have sung you awake, as I have done before.”

Amalalaq shivered. Did Kykvat mean when he had imprisoned Yamoria’s luck inside Raven Boy? Before she could think further, Yamoria emerged into the cold night and stood outlined in the moonlight.

“You listened?” Yamoria asked. Amalalaq gestured in negative. Yamoria wiped his eye socket and laughed. He gestured that he did not believe her. “Listening shows willfulness,” Yamoria said. “I like willfulness. Soon, my luck returns.” He leapt onto his sled. “I will need a bride. Maybe I will buy you, if old Kykvat will sell.” He shook his head. "Who understands the ways of shamans?" He took his seat on his sled and gave a cry. His dogs set off.

Kykvat glanced toward the night sky, where the Dancing Dead’s lights flickered and pulsed. Sometimes, the dead gave advice. Amalalaq whistled for them. If they heard, they gave no reply.

Amalalaq’s mittened hands clenched. Raven Boy was worth more than any old kayak or knife. She would simply tell Kykvat that he must not harm Raven Boy.

But would Kykvat listen? No, he would not. Who might Kykvat heed? Kykvat would not ignore the Spirits of the Walking Ice. Kykvat would not deny their request for Raven Boy's life.

Amalalaq shook her head. Those who entered the Valley of the Walking Ice changed forever. Besides, the valley was far away, and many kele stalked the night. The ancestors forbade women to drive dog sleds, so Amalalaq could not drive herself.

 “Come, Amalalaq,” Raven Boy called from inside the house of caribou hide, his sleep already forgotten. “Let us play a game with a seal bladder.”

Amalalaq made her decision. “The ancestors never said a woman could not direct a male’s driving,” Amalalaq whispered. She could direct Raven Boy while he directed the dogs. The talisman could protect her from the kele. But did she dare approach the Walking Ice? She could think of no other way to save Raven Boy. Resolute, Amalalaq entered the dwelling.

The night dragged on. Amalalaq thought that Kykvat would never sleep. Eventually, Kykvat entered a sputtering, tossing slumber.

At first, Raven Boy resisted Amalalaq's urgings to travel into the night. She dared not tell him of the journey's reason or destination. Finally, Amalalaq bribed Raven Boy with an auk carcass fermented in seal fat, a treat that she had saved for herself. By the time the moon rested on the horizon, Raven boy, with Amalalaq behind, had driven the sled as far as a snowshoed man might cover in a day. Without warning, a rumbling roar echoed from behind the sled. The dogs’ steady barks became terrified yelps. The noise came closer.

Amalalaq glanced over her shoulder. A great sled, pulled by walrus-sized dogs with eyes of burning coals and narwhal-tusks, pursued her. However frightful the dogs, their master far surpassed them. No clothing covered the driver’s shaggy hide. Whale-like flukes, ending in rending claws and with one side much larger than the other, dangled behind. The driver’s right eye bulged past his nose, while his left eye dangled  beneath his arm and stared backwards.

Amalalaq’s heart filled her throat. It was a kele. The roar was its dogs’ breath. “Faster,” Amalalaq urged. Raven Boy called out the command to the dogs. The dogs sped up, as though fleeing the terrible kokksaut monster, the sea-being who devours entire villages.

The kele, standing in its dogsled instead of seated like a normal person, called to her. “Wait, Amalalaq!” The kele’s words came from the left side of its mouth, while the right remained motionless. 

“Go away!” Amalalaq cried.

“You do not understand,” the kele responded. “You understand less than you can imagine.”   

Amalalaq sang every dog-speeding song she had ever heard, and the dogs ran faster. However fast Amalalaq’s dogs, the kele’s were faster. As the pale sun turned the horizon the color of a cod’s underside, Amalalaq felt the monstrous dogs’ steaming breath on her back.

“I can reveal what Kykvat has hidden,” the kele shouted. The kele’s awful dogs paced Amalalaq’s. The kele’s gnarled and knotted hand reached for Amalalaq. As it did, the talisman about Amalalaq’s neck bounced and struck her face. A glowing-ember pain radiated from its touch. 

Amalalaq ripped the talisman away, holding it by its sealskin thong. The kele reached for her again. Amalalaq pushed the talisman into the kele’s palm. Yellow blood spurted from the kele’s hand. The kele howled, gripping its wounded hand. Its sled overturned. The kele bounced across the snow. “Do you not want the truth?” the kele shouted at Amalalaq.

Amalalaq did not allow herself to hear. Who knows what falsehoods the kele might speak? With a burst of speed, the dogs carried her away.

Soon, the sled entered the Valley of the Walking Ice. Without a signal, the dogs grew silent and huddled together, their breath forming swirling clouds. Amalalaq stood in awe of the ice walls that glittered with light neither of sun, moon, nor fire. A sharp wind carried loose snow in circling clouds. That wind bore a half-voice that seemed to whisper of things better forgotten. Amalalaq shivered and pulled her anorak more tightly about herself.

Raven Boy, crouched in the sled, looked even smaller than usual. Amalalaq lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Is this the Walking Ice?” he quavered.

Amalalaq gestured in the affirmative. “I must consult the spirits here.”

Raven Boy cowered in the sled. “But only shamans and spirits can do that.”

“I will manage,” Amalalaq replied, feeling less confident than she sounded.

A groan that no living throat produced filled the valley. A shimmering face appeared in the wall of ice. Its brow twisted into a mocking expression. Cold flames filled its mismatched eyes.

Raven Boy cringed. “I’m not afraid.” His tone belied his words.

"Stay here,” Amalalaq whispered. She dismounted and approached the face. “Spirits,” Amalalaq called. Her voice echoed, sounding more like a war-band than one frightened girl. “I would speak with you.” A roar echoed from the ice walls. Amalalaq wanted to run, but stood her ground. “I would speak,” she called again.

Why?  Was it a word, or the wailing wind? Amalalaq was not certain. The lips of the ice face did not move, but its eyes transfixed her. Why?  The wind grew sharper. 

Amalalaq trembled. The house of whale-rib and caribou hide had never seemed so inviting, or so far away. Still, who besides the spirits might help? “Only you can save my friend,” she told the ice face. “Kykvat would not hear me. He would listen to you.”

Why?

The ground shuddered. The wind blew so hard that Amalalaq could barely hear her own voice. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Because the Spirits of the Walking Ice know the truth.”

“Truth?”  A sudden silence shrouded the valley. “Truth has sharp teeth. Will you brave them?” Now Amalalaq was certain that the spirits spoke.

Amalalaq glanced back at the sled. The dogs crouched, tails tucked. Raven Boy looked more frightened and miserable than the dogs. How could she retreat now? She signaled agreement.

Beneath the looming face, a patch of ice became transparent. In its glittering surface, she could see herself, the dog sled, Raven Boy ... everything. A fog covered the image, then parted. In the ice, Amalalaq saw Kykvat, younger than she could imagine him ever being. “Is this what was?” Amalalaq asked. The spirits gave no reply, save that the image now held a whale bone and carving knife. The image began to carve a tupilaq. Amalalaq swallowed hard. The tupilaq that Kykvat carved was Raven Boy.

“Might Kykvat change his mind and spare Raven Boy?” Amalalaq whispered.

Kykvat’s image turned. Its greedy smile seemed bone-mask fixed. Amalalaq had her answer. Somehow, she had always known. “Then Raven Boy and I will flee where Kykvat will never find us,” she whispered.  

“Truth,” the voice said.

The image on the ice twisted into a hunter, stalking across the snow with an odd rope of braided seal intestine. The hunter was Kykvat, older than the previous image but still young.

The ice-Kykvat formed a circle of rope. It hid the rope beneath a covering of snow. The image constructed a snow shelter. Grasping a talisman that dangled about its neck, the figure danced a shaman’s dance. It ran its hand above the rope, as though checking the magic. Satisfied, the figure entered the shelter, like a hunter awaiting a seal.

Amalalaq blinked. The location seemed familiar. Could it be where the house of whale-rib and caribou hide stood?

In the image in the ice, a female kele--twice as hairy and hideous as the one that had pursued her--came bounding over the snow. When the kele touched the circle, the rope ensnared it. The kele fell. Its dangling eye spun and writhed. Its lips spat curses. The ice Kykvat leapt forth, triumph on its face. It danced, as though to proclaim itself the greatest shaman ever. The ice Kykvat threw back its head, grasped the talisman about its neck, and opened its mouth to sing. The gestures said that this was a song that stole memories, a song only the most powerful shamans dared sing!

Then the image began a new song. The kele trembled and heaved. Then it transformed into something so terrible that Amalalaq knew no words for it--the monstrous being became Amalalaq herself.

Amalalaq staggered. She could not be a kele that Kykvat’s magic had shapechanged and memory-robbed! Why would Kykvat do such a thing?

“No greater mark of power than to bind a kele exists,” the spirits whispered. With those words, the face and image in the ice faded. Amalalaq’s reflection looked back at her. Did her right eye bulge a little? Did fine wisps of fur sprout about her cheeks? The left side of her lip trembled, while the right stood still. The wind began to blow. “Distance weakens magic,” a voice in the wind said, answering Amalalaq’s unspoken question. Leave Kykvat, and your true self awakens.

Amalalaq stood thunderstruck. Could she only remain human near the house of whale-rib and caribou hide? She called to the spirits, demanding to know. If they heard, they did not reply.

Amalalaq turned and trudged back to the sled.  “Did the spirits speak?” Raven Boy asked.

Amalalaq frowned. “You heard nothing?” 

“Only you,” Raven Boy replied.

Amalalaq wrestled with herself. After a moment, she made her decision. Amalalaq mounted the sled and looked up at the sky, growing brighter by the heartbeat. All expression drained from Amalalaq’s voice. “All is well now. We return home.”

Raven Boy heaved a relieved sigh and commanded the dogs to run. Amalalaq remembered her reflection in the ice. If she fixed her mind on that, the ride home with the doomed Raven Boy might not be as difficult as she feared.

Discuss this story in our forums